Whole Class Text Response Discussions (WCTRD) are pervasive in secondary English and represent one site in which students can learn to adopt the habits of critical thought that are promoted in state and national Curriculum documents. In this study, the phasal structures (Gregory and Malcolm 1981) of a variety of such WCTRDs in Australian secondary English classrooms were examined. It was found that teachers in such WCTRDs regularly made limited selections from the available pool of phases, such selections regularly scaffolding a narrow range of literate and moral skills, but offering little support for the development of critical and analytical response. Such results suggest that despite a shift at an academic and professional development level towards more critically-oriented models of text response, day-to-day discursive practice in some secondary English classrooms in Australia is still very much grounded in Reader Response practices (Iser 1978) that contribute to the development of morally compliant citizens. One WCTRD was selected for closer analysis of how the textual, experiential and interpersonal meanings (Halliday 1994) operated to privilege students’ ‘personal response’ over critical response. Through the examination of Transitivity and Conversational Structural choices in particular, a picture was provided of how this WCTRD was structured to encourage students to rehearse previously appropriated ideologies, rather than to critically or analytically interrogate these ideologies.

(1992) The making and remaking of readers and writers: a retrospect and prospect. In J. Thomson (ed.), Reconstructing literature teaching: new essays on the teaching of literature, 71–82. Norwood, S.A., AATE.

(1991) What counts as reading in the secondary school classroom – selective traditions of reading practices and positions. In F. Christie et al. (eds), Teaching English literacy, a project of national significance on the preservice preparation of teachers to teach English literacy. Vol 2: Readings, 113–124. Darwin: Centre for Studies in Language Education, Northern Territory University.

Martin, J.R.

(1992) English text: system and structure. Philadelphia, John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/z.59

(1998) Qualitative research and case-study: applications in education. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Misson, R.

(1996) What’s in it for me?: teaching against homophobic discourse. In L. Laskey and C. Beavis (eds), Schooling and sexualities: teaching for a positive sexuality, 117–129. Geelong, Deakin Centre for Education and Change.